Goodbye 2015

It’s not a big surprise I’m over a week late seeing the year off. It’s been that kind of a year, and I’m kind of glad to see 2015 go.

Not that there weren’t wonderful moments, terrifying and vertigo-inducing and lovely and amazing. There definitely were, like this one almost exactly 76 days ago:

She looks relieved, but he looks annoyed to have been kicked out of his comfortable (albeit cramped) living space. This was the firs picture ever taken of our little boy, moments after he was born.

And we all have a lot to be grateful for. As I write this, a few days behind schedule, our boy has been with us for 75 days, and just turned himself over, pushup style, for the first time in his life. (Mrs. Jiwaku called me excitedly when it happened.) They’re healthy. I’m healthy. We’re all whole and alive.

But even with the high points, I’m kind of glad 2015 is over. Parts of it were really an uphill battle—uphill on multiple fronts at once. I mean, we moved back to Korea, something we hadn’t planned or wanted to do, and we did it with much less preparation (and, yeah, less money) than we needed to really do it right. We ended up banging our heads against several (metaphorical) brick walls along the way. Adjusting to parenthood is a big shift, too, and that, too, is not so easy.

But something I just finished reading—and I only finished it because it’s a graphic novel, and didn’t take long—drove home, above all else, how boring it is to see someone rant about the idiocy and uselessness of other people, to theorize about why everything sucks, and gloss over his own mistakes. Which I suppose is a kind of indictment of blogging, if I’ve ever seen one, but it doesn’t have to be that way. I’ll spare all of us the rant, for now at least, and just say that I expect 2016 will be better, if not necessarily easier. I mean, years taken overall shouldn’t be easy; that’d be a signal that you’re not doing life correctly, I think. There should always be challenges. But some challenges are more of a grind you get through so you don’t have to face it again.

Anyway, other positive highlights: Mrs. Jiwaku finally finished that SF film of hers, and is trying to scrape out some time to work on the next thing(s). Here’s her film, in case anyone missed it:

I’ve already mentioned what I published in 2015—it’s not a long list, but it’s more than I published in 2014. That said, I’ve already go even more lined up for 2016, so things are looking up in that area.

I didn’t read much this year, but that should surprise nobody, since there’s a kid in the mix. I’ll be posting the last set of reviews for books I read in 2015—for September onward, I think it is—soon. Maybe I’ll post a list of the best stuff I read, too, I don’t know. We’ll see. I saw fewer films and more TV last year too—again, this should surprise nobody. There was a lot of good stuff, so maybe that deserves a list too. Hm.

It doesn’t get feel like the new year has started—it probably won’t till my winter intensive course has finished and the grades have been punched into the computer, a week from now. I haven’t really thought about what I want to change this year, though I’m not much for resolutions—they never stick anyway. Well, beyond the usual, that is: I need to get to the gym, or swimming, or something. We’re trying to nail down a healthier routine with Noeul, too, which is a challenge I will maybe write about once we feel we’ve pulled it off reasonably. We both feel that having made it through the year is a big achievement, but to be honest we somehow haven’t really had time to celebrate that. I’d like to get a little time in with the saxophone, and try get back to reading Pound as well, but who knows when that’ll happen? Time is a commodity like any other, and a kid kind of means that a good chunk of that time suddenly is spoken for. It makes you think of the time you wasted in years past, it really does, but all you can really do is move forward.

Anyway, that doesn’t even really sum up 2015, but it shares what I’m willing to share. So here’s to the things that were good, and to a year with more stuff like them. I mean, we all deserve that, don’t we? Even—er, I mean, especially—this little punk: